1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system that performs retrieval processing for static image data associated with video data (moving image data).
2. Description of the Related Art
Services for delivering various contents to browsing clients such as personal computers and mobile terminals are widely provided as services for specific areas or global areas.
There are different types of systems performing such contents delivery. With the development of network communication technology, contents data containing video data is also delivered.
In these contents delivery systems, various contents data is registered in a delivery server, and when browsing clients access the delivery server to select and request desired contents, in response to it, the delivery server provides the contents data to the browsing clients.
In systems delivering video data, to ease selection of contents, the video data is associated with contents records (meta-records) including contents title, keyword for selecting contents, category information for selecting contents, contents author information, and the like, providing convenience for users who view contents by use of the browsing clients.
There is delivered video data of a wide range of fields from amusements such as movies to education, lecture, presentation, and minutes. Especially for video of lectures, presentations, minutes, and the like produced with use of materials, there is a demand to provide static images of the materials also to browsing clients together with video images, and synchronously reproduce these images to enrich information provision.
In the case where the above system is realized, if it could be determined what static images of materials and the like are associated with the video data, desired video data would be conveniently located from many video data pieces. Also, conveniently, desired static image data would be located from many static images associated with the video data. Furthermore, from reproduction time positions in video data associated with static image data, relevant video data could be located and reproduced.
However, since image retrieval has relied on users' visual search operations, retrieval operations have been extremely cumbersome in the case where many video data pieces and static images associated therewith are processed.